Chapter Summaries

He Ao and Wei Jinna connected the Dark Lizard’s disappearance near Twilight City to a possible return to De Nuo City, while considering whether its earlier rampage had been caused by outside interference. They went to search the Kwott Group building over its Security Director’s alleged role in the President’s assassination, where He Ao appeared as the wanted assassin Pa Xiu.

• Wei Jinna told He Ao that Contraband Drug use had spread in De Nuo City and that obstruction had hampered her investigations.
• Wei Jinna recounted the Dark Lizard’s passage near Twilight City, and He Ao reasoned that it might have returned to the southern wilderness of De Nuo City after an abnormal encounter.
• He Ao suggested the Dark Lizard’s earlier rampage might not have been caused by its own behavior, giving Wei Jinna a new avenue to investigate.
• Wei Jinna asked how they could enter the heavily secured Kwott Group building, and He Ao proposed a direct but risky approach.
• Wei Jinna and He Ao arrived with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and presented a search warrant to the Kwott Group’s Silver-Haired Old Man.
• He Ao revealed himself beneath Pa Xiu’s Wanted notice and greeted the Silver-Haired Old Man as the man broke into a cold sweat.

Wei Jinna and He Ao pressed the Kwott Group to allow a search for evidence related to the President’s assassination, while the Silver-Haired Old Man used the group’s armed forces to resist. The standoff ended with Wei Jinna setting her bottom line at searching the Security Director’s office and the Underground Vault.

• Wei Jinna presented He Ao as a cooperating witness, and the Silver-Haired Old Man questioned the scope of the planned search of the Kwott Group Building.
• The Silver-Haired Old Man’s forces surrounded the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents with armored vehicles and mercenaries, but Wei Jinna ordered the search to proceed.
• Wei Jinna walked toward the building entrance with He Ao, and the young agents followed despite the threat from the Kwott Group’s weapons.
• The Silver-Haired Old Man called for a compromise, and He Ao suggested limiting the search to areas the Security Director had visited.
• Wei Jinna refused to abandon the search and set her bottom line at the Security Director’s office and the Underground Vault, claiming she had evidence that the vault held key items.

Wei Jinna and He Ao gained access to the Kwott Group's Underground Vault after outmaneuvering the Silver-Haired Old Man, while the Glasses Man met a thin figure at a villa to discuss an investigation. The vault door opened into Zone One, where Wei Jinna could search for evidence.

• He Ao helped Wei Jinna pressure the Silver-Haired Old Man into arranging a limited search of the Underground Vault, while the young agents were sent to search the Security Director's office.
• The Glasses Man entered a villa and asked a thin figure what their investigation had uncovered.
• The Silver-Haired Old Man led Wei Jinna, He Ao, and a mercenary captain through the Executive Director's office and its private elevator to the vault.
• During the elevator ride, He Ao read the Silver-Haired Old Man's thoughts as he planned revenge and imagined an evening with his boyfriend.
• The Silver-Haired Old Man opened the vault's circular metal door and told Wei Jinna that she could search Zone One.

He Ao and Wei Jinna recovered a secret medicine and Storage Chip from Kwott Group’s vault, while investigators uncovered major security failures in the President Assassination Case. As He Ao and Wei Jinna left the Executive Director’s Office, something struck through the glass wall and triggered an explosion.

• He Ao led Wei Jinna to Area 1 - Row 27 and retrieved an envelope hidden behind a metal box, revealing a translucent mithril test tube of blue liquid and a Storage Chip.
• Wei Jinna argued that the envelope was not Kwott Group property, retained the evidence, and searched nearby boxes without finding further leads.
• The Glasses Man and a thin figure discussed how the assassins entered the scene and suspected that the De Nuo City Municipal Government had allowed serious security loopholes.
• The Glasses Man postponed reporting the intelligence, ordered further investigation into who controlled the Municipal Government, and said he would try to capture Pa Xiu.
• He Ao heard the Silver-Haired Old Man contacting his allies, then grabbed Wei Jinna and pulled her away as an object smashed through the office’s glass wall and an explosion engulfed the room.

After a sniper’s explosive Transcendent Bullet destroyed the top floor of the Kwote Building, He Ao chased the assassin while Wei Jinna organized the response and climbed down from the wreckage. He Ao confronted the scarred B-class assassin in a plaza, and their fight began with He Ao facing a powerful attack.

• A Transcendent Bullet blasted apart part of the Kwote Building, and He Ao raced after the shooter while Wei Jinna survived on a rubble platform.
• Wei Jinna ordered the FBI agents to seal off nearby buildings, evacuate the crowd, and search for the missing Pa Xiu before climbing down through the damaged structure.
• He Ao tracked the sniper to a plaza, where he found a scarred man waiting with a Heavy Gauss Sniper Rifle.
• The scarred assassin admitted that he had fired his last Transcendent Bullet and drew twin scimitars to fight He Ao.
• He Ao exchanged blows with the B-class assassin, who praised his skill before appearing overhead and unleashing a crushing attack.

He Ao fought Scarface Man, who transformed into a Horned Giant surrounded by lava, and destroyed the giant’s interconnected Energy Convergence Points. After the battle, Wei Jinna arrived as the giant’s body collapsed in flames.

• He Ao deflected Scarface Man’s attack and sent him crashing through a statue and a flower bed.
• Scarface Man transformed into a lava-covered Horned Giant and attacked He Ao with enormous flaming hands.
• He Ao studied the giant’s Energy Circuit and used the Crescent Curved Blade to strike several Energy Convergence Points.
• The Horned Giant ambushed He Ao with lava blades, but He Ao sent the Crescent Curved Blade flying toward a convergence point and used the Wooden Stock Rifle to hit the final point.
• Wei Jinna emerged from an alley and called out Pa Xiu as the Horned Giant’s remaining flaming hand exploded and He Ao landed on a scorching boulder.

He Ao defeated the assassin who had attacked him and Wei Jinna, then learned the assassin had also killed the President but knew little about the conspiracy. He Ao traced the likely mastermind to a powerful Kwott Group executive, but Wei Jinna learned that the Executive Director had gone missing.

• He Ao drew the Horned Giant’s remaining power into the Crescent Curved Blade and recovered the Heavy Gauss Sniper Rifle using fragments of his divine consciousness.
• He Ao gave Wei Jinna the rifle and revealed that its owner had been the assassin who killed the President, though the assassin had only followed orders.
• He Ao and Wei Jinna concluded that whoever ordered the attack likely knew the Kwott Group vault’s location and had access to information about their movements.
• Wei Jinna decided to bring in the Kwott Group executives who had been absent, while He Ao suspected the mastermind was not among the executives who had stayed late.
• Wei Jinna received word that the Kwott Group Executive Director had gone missing.

After the Horned Giant’s defeat, Wei Jinna investigated the disappearance of Kwott Group’s Executive Director and suspected he had been targeted by the conspirators. He Ao acquired the transformed Demon blade and left to preserve his failing body, while Wei Jinna gathered the executives for questioning and was confronted by a young man asking about Pa Xiu.

• Wei Jinna learned that Kwott Group’s Executive Director and his security team were missing, and she suspected the Security Director had arranged the lapse in protection to target him.
• He Ao interrupted Wei Jinna’s tangled speculation, urged her to investigate the executives first, and examined the transformed blade named Demon, which had gained Flame Blade and Chaos Heart abilities.
• He Ao told Wei Jinna to check on the executives, then left after realizing his body would last only until the following night.
• Wei Jinna gathered Kwott Group’s executives at the company, confronted the Bearded Man about his affairs, and told them she expected someone to reveal what they knew about the attack.
• A young man approached Wei Jinna and urgently asked whether she had captured Pa Xiu.

Wei Jinna questioned the Kwott Group executives about the President’s assassination and learned that Kai Luo, a rapidly promoted executive, was missing alongside the Executive Director. An anonymous message from Pa Xiu urged her to focus on Kai Luo, and she continued gathering information as another message arrived.

• Wei Jinna told the Aines People that Pa Xiu had escaped after an explosion, while they agreed to search nearby and leave people to help seal off the area.
• Wei Jinna confronted the gathered Kwott Group executives with the accusation of assassinating the President and judged their reactions as suggesting they were hiding things unrelated to the attempt.
• Wei Jinna revealed that Kai Luo, head of the Rare Earth Minerals Business Unit, had gone missing around the same time as the Executive Director, prompting varied reactions from the executives.
• The executives described Kai Luo’s rapid rise from Aines and his strained relations with local colleagues, especially the Bearded Man, who had competed against him for his position.
• Wei Jinna received an anonymous message from Pa Xiu advising her to question the absent Kai Luo, then continued collecting information as another message arrived.

Wei Jinna and He Ao searched Kai Luo’s apartment and uncovered signs of his rise through the Kwott Group and his connection to K’s mask. They found an empty hidden safe, suggesting Kai Luo had prepared for his disappearance and recently removed what he had stored there.

• Wei Jinna entered Kai Luo’s apartment with He Ao and learned that Kai Luo had advanced from a former Kepesi Mining employee to the Kwott Group’s De Nuo City branch leadership.
• He Ao explained that the supervisor who transferred Kai Luo to De Nuo City had died in a wilderness attack, and they found a K mask displayed in the apartment.
• Wei Jinna and He Ao examined the masks and discussed Kai Luo’s record of reducing miner deaths by firing workers who were near death while the branch’s profits and output rose.
• He Ao searched the master bedroom, removed a frequently handled mask, and opened a concealed safe that was empty except for outlines of recently removed objects.
• Eve reported detecting two potentially useful data records as He Ao concluded that Kai Luo had prepared for his departure.

He Ao reconstructed Kai Luo’s burned notes and reviewed his hidden document collection, learning that Kai Luo had sought a chaotic place to hide. He and Wei Jinna used the search for Pa Xiu to mobilize forces across De Nuo City, while a young commander’s unit raided a gang district and Wei Jinna disappeared.

• Eve recovered fragments of Kai Luo’s burned notes, which mentioned a mask, a secret plan, and his confidence in rising within the Kwott Group.
• He Ao read Kai Luo’s document collection and found that Kai Luo had investigated chaotic districts and learned of a secret super rare earth mine owned by the Kwott Group.
• He Ao and Wei Jinna identified more than a dozen possible hiding places, and He Ao said they had enough manpower to search them.
• A young commander received word that Pa Xiu was near the Kwott Building and led black-clothed forces to seal off the South Tenth Street District.
• The gang resisted the blockade, and the commander ordered his forces to attack while Wei Jinna’s agents evacuated civilians and secured the surrounding area.
• After the fighting, the commander found no sign of Pa Xiu and discovered that Wei Jinna had vanished.

As the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Aines group searched De Nuo City for Kai Luo and the missing Executive Director, Glasses Man turned on Wei Jinna and used her as bait to lure someone out. Just as he threatened her with a Soft Sword, Pa Xiu answered from behind him.

• A morning show reported that the president remained in danger after an assassination by a Wilderness Wanderers immigrant, and that backlash against Wilderness Wanderers residents had spread to several cities.
• The young commander learned his men had spent the night chasing Kai Luo without finding him, then received a call that made him order them to move again.
• Wei Jinna searched for Kai Luo and the missing Executive Director with her contacts, but signal interference cut off her communications before Glasses Man asked her to cooperate.
• He Ao learned that signal interference had disabled all but his main body's functions, then leaped from a rooftop.
• Glasses Man surrounded Wei Jinna with Aines forces, revealed he planned to use her life to draw out a hidden man, and ordered his men to cripple her when she refused.
• Glasses Man pinned Wei Jinna to the ground and held a Soft Sword to her neck, calling out Pa Xiu; a calm voice answered from behind him.

He Ao defeated a newly formed Horned Giant created from two Aines People who had been turned into Human Skin Puppets, while the FBI agents watched. He Ao suspected the Aines People had uncovered something dangerous and ordered the surviving black-clothed men detained as events seemed to be spiraling toward a larger crisis.

• Glasses Man and a thin figure combined with the yellow radiance to form a Horned Giant, while the young man and nearby black-clothed men were swallowed by the radiance.
• Wei Jinna urged the FBI agents to attack the monster, and He Ao met the Horned Giant’s spear with his flaming Crescent Curved Blade.
• He Ao slashed through the incomplete Horned Giant and set it ablaze, then sensed an invisible shadow connected toward the south.
• He Ao identified the remains as the skins of the two Aines People, whose bodies had already been hollowed out and controlled as puppets.
• Wei Jinna approached the remaining black-clothed men with FBI agents to detain them, while He Ao reflected that the situation was rapidly worsening.

He Ao and Wei Jinna investigated the Glasses Man’s villa and found that a shattered tablet had been deliberately broken to protect its intact storage chip. They headed back to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to recover its data, then searched the Glasses Man’s study and uncovered a document he had not yet deleted.

• He Ao and Wei Jinna learned that the Glasses Man’s former subordinates knew little about the attack, and He Ao inferred that the Glasses Man and a slender figure had met in the villa hall before they were killed.
• He Ao used Eve to control the villa’s butler system and discovered that a cleaning robot had swept the shattered window glass and other debris into its bin.
• He Ao and Wei Jinna recovered fragments of a tablet motherboard and identified an intact storage chip that someone had protected while deliberately smashing the device.
• He Ao reviewed Eve’s report, which showed that the villa’s cameras had been disrupted during the attack and that the Glasses Man had used a second-floor study.
• He Ao and Wei Jinna searched the study, restored the lone document from the computer’s Recycle Bin, and opened it.

He Ao read Glasses Man’s unfinished report on the President’s assassination and questioned Kwott Group executives about Kai Luo and the Executive Director. The executives linked the Executive Director to a corrupt stimulant scheme, and He Ao learned that Kwott’s largest rare-earth mine was in Slokes Grand Canyon.

• He Ao found that Glasses Man’s unfinished report described other assassins, suspected interference by the Kwott Group and Municipal Government, and unexplained support for Pa Xiu.
• He Ao and Wei Jinna waited for Eve to decrypt the Storage Chip and confirmed that the executives had arrived.
• He Ao exposed and destroyed a miniature bug hidden in a Ruby Brooch, then joined Wei Jinna in questioning the Kwott Group executives.
• The executives said Kai Luo had been unusually close to the Executive Director, who profited from a stimulant scheme that exploited miners.
• He Ao asked where Kwott’s largest rare-earth mine was and learned from the executives’ reactions that it was in Slokes Grand Canyon.

He Ao and Wei Jinna uncovered evidence that Kwott Group may have driven the Dark Lizard from its habitat to exploit the Slokes Grand Canyon mine, and feared Kai Luo might repeat the disaster to seize the mine. Wei Jinna set out to coordinate an evacuation while He Ao flew to the South Gate to prevent a new crisis.

• He Ao and Wei Jinna deduced that the Dark Lizard may have returned to Slokes Grand Canyon, where Kwott Group was mining, and that the company might have driven it from its home years earlier.
• He Ao told Wei Jinna that her brother had not known about the plan and had helped save He Ao's wife, while the brother's own death might have involved the people behind the incident.
• He Ao and Wei Jinna suspected Kai Luo had left the city with Kwott Group's De Nuo City Executive Director, whose secrets could help Kai Luo take the mine and drive away the Dark Lizard.
• He Ao asked Wei Jinna to coordinate with the Municipal Government, warn people, and evacuate citizens near the South Gate and Wilderness Wanderers; she agreed and left by helicopter.
• He Ao flew toward the South Gate and reviewed Eve's analysis of the Glasses Man's storage chip, which linked the assassination attempt on the Old President to channels inside the Municipal Government and possibly Kwott Group.

He Ao traveled toward South Gate as the Federal Bureau of Investigation tried to evacuate residents and close the gate before a Dark Lizard arrived. When the City Defense Army commander refused to cooperate, He Ao confronted him and made him issue the order to close the gate, then returned to the vehicle.

• He Ao and the pilot crossed South Gate’s run-down alleys and drove toward the evacuation zone as residents began leaving.
• Wei Jinna told He Ao that the South Gate commander refused to close the gate to protect Kwott Group’s trade, while the Municipal Government claimed it could activate something to repel the Dark Lizard.
• He Ao learned that officials also would not approve his permission to leave the city, and he decided to confront the commander instead of joining a transport convoy.
• He Ao entered the command center, where the commander summoned a giant golden serpent and threatened him.
• He Ao defeated the serpent and forced the commander to issue an order closing the city gate.
• He Ao returned to the moving vehicle, leaving the pilot to find him seated in the back again.

He Ao realized Kai Luo was seeking the Dark Lizard rather than the rare-earth mine and hurried to South Gate as De Nuo City evacuated. Trapped in the barbican by the closing gates and the Commander's ambush, He Ao faced a powerful monster as a freezing wind swept in.

• A man driving toward De Nuo City turned right at a wasteland signpost marked South Gate and East Gate, ignoring the warning not to touch it.
• He Ao learned that no Kepesi Mining mercenaries had been found in the wasteland and concluded that Kai Luo wanted to use the Dark Lizard to achieve a larger goal.
• He Ao urged Wei Jinna to expand the evacuation, left his vehicle, and raced toward South Gate while the Commander prepared an ambush in the barbican.
• He Ao entered the barbican as the city gates closed, and the Commander ordered his Seraph Mechs to fire.
• A freezing wind swept through the barbican, crushing the red mech with the pressure of a true Angel-level monster as He Ao looked toward the sky.

A blood-red phenomenon spread across De Nuo City as the Dark Lizard attacked, and He Ao stood alone at the South Gate as the monster reached the city. The beast withdrew after noticing the colossal purple machinery above the city, and the sky returned to normal while He Ao remained standing, badly wounded.

• Blood-red light spread across De Nuo City, disrupting communications and throwing residents into panic as Wei Jinna drove east and a man launched toward the Kwott Group building.
• Invisible hands drained the soldiers at the South Gate, while a violent wind and the expanding blood sun tore through the gates and devastated parts of the city.
• The mayor identified the approaching threat as the Dark Lizard and ordered his staff to contact Aines for help.
• He Ao walked toward the wilderness under crushing pressure as the Dark Lizard arrived and smashed through the Outer City Gate.
• The Dark Lizard looked up at the purple machinery spanning the sky, retreated, and vanished eastward as the blood-red sky and storm receded.
• He Ao remained motionless at the ruined gate as the city’s sky brightened, the purple machinery faded, and the distorted plants withered.

In De Nuo City, a colossal purple mechanical apparition marked with “K” appeared as the bloody sky faded, and the mayor recognized it as an angel unrelated to Aines. Outside the south gate, He Ao survived the Dark Lizard by feigning angelic power but was left gravely injured, while a man’s attempt to escape with a ceramic jar containing a decayed woman’s head ended when the head vanished and footsteps approached.

• The mayor’s secretary reported that Aines could not be contacted, and the mayor pointed out the angelic apparition in the sky bearing the character “K.”
• He Ao explained that he had used a trace of Angel Rank to disrupt the Dark Lizard’s attack and create an illusion that frightened it into fleeing.
• With his body close to breaking apart, He Ao took out a tube of blue liquid as footsteps approached from the wilderness.
• A man entered a hidden room in the Kwott Group building and retrieved a ceramic jar containing a decayed woman’s head.
• The man’s emergency exit stopped opening, the head awakened and then crumbled to dust, and footsteps sounded beyond the metal door.